The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica to decide whether Deep Sea Mining, or DSM, can go ahead in the absence of enforceable regulations. If you are new to this issue and have a modicum of interest in the planet we all live on, that bald sentence might cause you to ask: WHY? Very briefly, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS includes the so-called two-year rule, which allows a member state to require that applications for DSM be considered if regulations have not yet been completed by 9 July 2023, which they have not. The member state which triggered this rule is Nauru, a small Pacific island, which has had 80-90% of its landscape destroyed by mining for phosphorous, its marine life degraded by run-off from the mines and its economy devastated. Nauru is working with a Canadian company, called The Metals Company.
Very little is known about the deep sea, which is the largest ecosystem on earth, some two kilometres below the surface of the ocean. Humanity, with its never-ending propensity for hubris, believed there was nothing there – given the pressure at such depth, the lack of light. But slowly scientists are beginning to encounter the life that survives there, life that has evolved over millennia. There are pictures online of strange, feathery beings and images of organisms which occupy underwater sea vents, where temperatures can rise to 400 degrees Centigrade. Imagine.
Also over millennia, mineral rich nodules have formed and lie on the deep sea floor. The President of the Cook Islands recently called them ‘golden apples’ – there for our taking. They contain many of the minerals we need for an energy transition – manganese, cobalt, nickel – to make solar panels, windmills and the batteries for electric vehicles. Why wouldn’t we just go and get them, instead of developing alternatives, which are, in fact, coming fast?
What so disturbs me about this thoughtless, uninformed, lazy approach, especially at the leadership level, is this determined continuation of the way we have always gone about getting what we want – explore, identify, extract, devastate and then move on. Think of all the life that has fallen in this unceasing, unslakable quest – the genocides, enslavement, torture, forced labour, pillage and plunder. Slaughtered, sickened peoples. Whole cultures destroyed. Languages lost. Forests razed, land torn apart, mountains reduced to rubble. The enduring waste we have created. The degradation of coral reefs, another extraordinary ecosystem, now probably in a death spiral due to the unprecedented ocean temperatures in so many parts of the world. Fires raging on three continents. Glaciers in retreat. The stable atmosphere that birthed our civilization – our own Goldilocks zone – already knocked out of that stability. Yet none of this gives us pause – we are still prepared to send our machines down, down, down to this mysterious place at the bottom of the sea, where we know that no state will be able to monitor the miners, to grab up these golden apples, to risk the health of the ocean. The ocean, people.
And my own government persists in maintaining a fiction that we will be able to regulate the miners, to protect the marine environment. Sure they use all the right words – sustainable is a particular favourite, spread around like confetti, transparency is another. But they all know we have never managed any extractive industry without damage to air, water, land and people. Well, the miners say, there are no people in the deep sea. Maybe not, but it is the ocean that makes life on earth possible. And those who are willing to lay waste to anything and everything have learned not to say, at least not out loud, f--- that feathery, strange creature. But that’s how they feel.
I went to two of the protests on the Kingston waterfront, outside the conference centre. As always, I was struck by the power imbalance – the delegates zipping by in their flag-adorned, air- conditioned luxury vehicles, the small number of protesters – mostly young people, holding their signs, sometimes singing, dancing, drumming. The delegates were inside, the people protesting the imminent risk to what UNCLOS calls ‘the common heritage of mankind’ – they were outside. There are accredited NGOs inside, but there many closed door sessions and as of recently, their members must not be involved in protest.
Golden apples have a place in the mythologies of many cultures. The Golden Apple of Discord triggered the Trojan War. In Celtic myth, apples signify immortality, power and prosperity. In Norse myth, apples confer immortality – the food of the gods – until they are stolen by a giant, and the gods begin to age. And of course there is the Christian tradition of The Fall, precipitated by the eating of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
Perhaps the most applicable myth here is the eleventh labour of Hercules. He had to steal the apples on a tree which was a wedding gift to Hera on her marriage to Zeus, king of the gods. Valuable apples, in other words. The apples were protected by three nymphs and guarded by a dragon. In some versions of the story, Hercules merely sat with the nymphs and they gave him the apples freely. And this makes me think of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), doling out them shiny golden apples. But golden apples have always had their price. And it will not be the miners who pay it, but that elusive, priceless, ineffable thing we are oh so willing to sell – the common heritage of mankind.
There are 167 member countries, plus the European Union, who are signatories to UNCLOS and therefore members of the ISA. At the time of writing, 21 countries have called for a pause or moratorium on deep sea mining in international waters, at least until the science is more robust and enforceable regulations have been developed – surely the lowest of low bars. And Jamaica, where the ISA is headquartered, is not one of them. I’m ashamed of my government and I’m so grateful to all those who’ve been putting up a resistance.
To all who signed up for my Substack, I’m sorry for the break in transmission. Personal stuff I won’t bore you with. But I do appreciate your taking the time to sign up, and hope you’ll continue to find something worth reading here.
I am sharing widely, of course Diana. You have got me warmed up now for an article over the weekend, if I can find the time (family, family!) Thank you so much for explaining the background so clearly.